Email interview faux pas we're seeing WAY too often
Your clients are committing some serious bloopers when sending email interview responses — here's what to watch for and how to troubleshoot!
Happy Thursday Top Tier Subscribers.
First of all, we wanted to thank everyone for THE BEST Christmas in July Affiliate Marketing Session on Tuesday.
Between affiliate guru Sarah Karger’s AMAZING presentation, the affiliate pitch examples that we shared, and the amazing Q&A session, we really left no stones unturned in the affiliate marketing world. We’ve been receiving rave reviews (like the one below!) and are thrilled to hear how much this workshop helped everyone:
“We all know the media landscape is shifting, and understanding how affiliate platforms operate is essential to helping our brands land continuous coverage. TTC's 'Christmas in July' workshop is a must-attend for PR professionals wanting to up their affiliate marketing game and get ahead of the ever-so-competitive gift guide season. Jill and Nicole took the time to explain how gift guide assignment works, which offered great insight to help with pitch development, and answered everyone's questions thoughtfully and thoroughly. Sarah's deep dive into affiliate marketing was exceptional, easy to understand, and offered a new perspective I am eager to incorporate into my business strategy and share with my clients."
— Dana Lewis, CEO/Founder Dana Lewis Public Relations
If you missed the workshop, no big deal! We’re selling the whole package so you can watch on your own time.
You’ll receive:
Sarah’s affiliate marketing presentation deck
a helpful checklist on what to include about your client’s affiliate program in an email pitch to a writer/editor
examples of good affiliate pitches
the Zoom recording
links to pertinent Top Tier Substack posts you may have missed
For more information on what we covered in the session, check out this post we sent out yesterday.
Cost: $49 Paid TTC Substack Subscribers; $99 Free TTC Subscribers
(but you can always upgrade for the discount AND it’ll give you access to our weekly paid posts and monthly Top Tier Talks, too)’
Shoot us an email (info@toptierconsulting.NET) and we’ll get you a copy of the recording, deck and pitches … plus some helpful links, too!
Alright, moving on to this week’s topic: Email interview faux pas.
At Top Tier, we’ve talked in the past about email interviews, covering why writers do them, and how to help your clients navigate them.
A recommended read from our archives on that topic is a past super deep dive we did on How to Help Your Clients Rock Email Interviews.
In that newsletter, we dive deep into some of our best tips for nailing an email interview, such as:
Do not let your source plagiarize (from themselves on their blog, book, etc. or another source). Ever. Ever. Ever.
Follow the direction of the questions.
Keep the audience/demographic in mind.
Infuse some personality and personalization into the responses.
If your client is better on the phone, tell us. We’ll set up a phone interview.
To give you a free preview of our favorite tip on that topic, here’s #4 from the Substack:
Infuse some personality and personalization into the responses:
Boring, dry and generic responses are another reason why some clients that submit email answers don’t make it in. Have your client include some personal stories and anecdotes into their responses, things they are seeing within their practices and places of business. If we’re asking someone to comment on something like infertility, have them infuse a sense of compassion and understanding into their responses: “We know this is something a lot of people struggle with and it can be a challenging time…that’s why doing XYZ can help.” We are always looking for original, unique, and appealing content. Think “what type of quotes would I want to read or find interesting or appealing as a reader” when reading quotes from a source in an article.
And also, we wanted to reiterate some of the many reasons why writers ask for email interviews vs. phoners:
We could have a shorter lead time
Writers are juggling a lot: sourcing, pitching, writing, sending invoices, transcribing interviews, conducting interviews, marketing themselves, keeping up a social media presence. Sometimes email interviews are just easier and move faster.
We may only need a quick quote and don’t have time to be on the phone with someone for a half hour to get it.
It can be easier and we can get better quotes that way.
Scheduling can run smoother and a source has more time to answer questions on their own time, without having to reschedule interview dates and times and go back and forth in an inbox.
Some sources do better over email when they can think through their responses more and some types of interviews warrant these more than others — i.e. if we’re asking for 5 tips on how to tone your butt, it can be hard for people to come up with it on the spot, or if we need them to find studies to cite.
Now that we have that squared away, we’d like to point out that we’re seeing a ton of email interview bloopers that have been happening lately.
When an email interview is done well, it’s magic. When it’s not, it’s tragic. A lot of people are missing the mark lately on these email interviews and sadly completely unaware that they are doing it. This can greatly reduce a source’s chance of being included in an article, can strain a relationship between a writer and a publicist, and can create all sorts of editorial chaos.
Let’s take a look at some of these common email interview no-nos that we’re seeing and do a deep dive into what to do instead in these situations.
Yes, there is a paywall here. If you’re a free subscriber make sure to upgrade to paid so that you can take advantage of reading our current and past newsletters. We are charging a small fee to receive our weekly email newsletters but as two professional writers, we’re treating these like we would any article we’d being commissioned to write. A lot of effort goes into these. And if you sign up/ upgrade your subscription to any paid plan, you’ll get monthly access to us where you can ask us questions that came up during the month in our virtual Ask us Anything sessions. In addition, you can access our entire extensive archives of blog posts where we tackle everything from:
The email subject lines that best catch a writer’s attention — and ones that flop
Our best tips on structuring your pitches
How to sell your clients vs. just tell us about them
How to nail a gift guide submission
Things to do before sending out press samplers
In-person vs. virtual events and our best tips for hosting a successful one
How to find the right writers you want to connect with and maintain relationships with them
And so much more!
And for a sample post of the type of weekly content that we offer, here’s a freebie that has been extremely popular with our audience: Our TOP Tips from 2022 (spoiler: they ALL still apply in the new year!)